


Easier

by laireshi



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-02-26 11:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13234848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: 505noun (informal)1. The thing which is simultaneously keeping you alive and killing you, often used to describe a person who you're in love with (but who may be bad for you).





	Easier

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cap Iron Man Community](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cap+Iron+Man+Community).



> Thanks to runningondreams for betaing :)
> 
> For the comm prompt which is in the summary.

It would be easier, Tony thinks, if he’d never loved Steve.

It’s a ridiculous thought. _What if he weren’t Iron Man, what if he weren’t an addict; what if he didn’t love Steve_. He wouldn’t be himself without all of these, much as he might hate the fact.

It isn’t easy and it isn’t pretty and lately it feels like it hurts more often than not, and still, if by some miracle Tony got a choice, if he put on the Infinity Gauntlet again, he knows he’d never choose not to love Steve.

Steve’s like a sun: he gives Tony life, and burns him when Tony gets too close.

(But that’s not quite right, Tony thinks; he burns himself. It’s not Steve’s fault at all.)

There’s a two years gap in his memory, and Tony knows why that is: he killed Steve and he couldn’t live with it. Too much of a coward to kill himself; too much of a coward to face what he’s done, too. Trust Tony Stark to find a middle solution to that problem.

He has enough other memories to make up for that lack, though: the multiverse ending, a new team and an unimaginable betrayal; Steve’s smile as Tony planned the Avengers World for him and Steve’s face as he remembered _why_ ; the warmth of Steve’s shoulders under Tony’s arm as as they walked to get coffee and the pain of Tony’s jaw breaking when Steve punched him (not hard enough, never hard enough).

And now; now there’s a man with Steve’s face who’s not Steve at all, destroying the world, and Tony knows the best way to stop him is to kill him, Tony knows Steve would want that, and Tony _can’t do it_ because he’s selfish and he never learns better and after all the times he’s failed, he’s still arrogant enough to thinks he can save Steve when all he’s ever really done is brought him pain.

It would be better if Tony didn’t love him; for Steve and for the world.

***

It would be easier, Steve thinks, if he’d never loved Tony.

It’s a ridiculous thought. _What if he weren’t Captain America, what if he died in the plane crash, what if he didn’t love Tony Stark_? He’d be a completely different man, not Steve Rogers. 

It’s push and pull, it’s like they’re two pieces of two different puzzles that should never fit together but twisted just right, they do; it’s like all that’s right with the world--and sometimes it’s just blinding pain. But it’s always, _always_ worth it.

Tony found him in the ice, Tony gave him a home, Tony saw him and understood him and Tony showed him the future and Tony made Steve stop missing the past. 

Tony fought him almost to the bitter end over a piece of legislation; Tony almost died at Steve’s hand; Tony made himself forget and smiled at Steve as if nothing had happened when they met again.

(Tony makes Steve angry like no one else ever could--but he makes Steve happy, too.)

Everything’s enhanced, with Tony. There are no easy solutions, no middle way. Either they work, and they’re the best in the world, or they don’t, and they take down cities in their fights.

Tony’s the best hero Steve’s ever known, and Tony can also be so _wrong_ sometimes. It would be easier, more acceptable, less painful if Steve didn’t love him, but it’s not; Tony keeps making things worse, and Steve can’t quit him. 

(The Avengers World was the best thing to ever happen to him. Waking up, remembering not only the betrayal, but also Tony lying to his face with a bright smile for a year, was unspeakable.

The world ended as Steve fought Tony with nothing else to live for.)

And then someone warped Steve’s mind, turned him inside out, and the only constant was that he loved Tony still, except this time he wanted to destroy him, too.

(No; not the only constant, there was another: Tony saved him again. Tony always does.)

It’d be better if Steve didn’t love him, didn’t keep fighting him. But it wouldn’t be life at all.

***

They meet in the middle, just this once.

Steve’s lips are chapped and Tony’s beard tickles, and the kiss is as surprising as it isn’t, really.

“We’ll destroy each other,” Tony says.

“We already have,” Steve answers. “And yet, here we stand.”

“Here we stand,” Tony echoes, and leans in again.

(When they inevitably fall, they’ll do that together, too.)


End file.
